POULTRY: A SUCCESS STORY 91 



In grading eggs for weight, Hurd * says "fancy 

 weight should be two and one-quarter to two and 

 one-half ounces, or more, each, twenty-seven ounces 

 to the dozen. . . . The 'standard' size of first qual- 

 ity eggs in nearly every market in the United 

 States varies between one and fifteen-sixteenths 

 and two and one-quarter ounces for each egg, 

 twenty-four ounces to the dozen." But there are 

 few "markets in the United States" where there is 

 any compulsion to brand standard weight "stand- 

 ard" rather than "fancy," or where it is not es- 

 teemed legitimate to include all weights in a sin- 

 gle dozen as long as the total weight of the dozen 

 is as it should be. To be sure, no farmer, grading 

 a limited number of eggs, could otherwise hope to 

 turn out uniform dozens. 



To produce good quality eggs the first thing to 

 do is to grow good quality hens, in which proper 

 feeding and management play at least an equal 

 part with proper selection of growing stock. Poul- 

 trymen still have something to learn from that 

 dairy expert who told me you can not overfeed a 

 good milch cow: their tendency still is to try to 

 figure out minimum feeding programs, instead of 

 feeding the birds all they will eat and then cashing 

 in on selective breeding. From the time they start 



i Louis M. Hurd, Practical Poultry -Farming, New York, 

 Macmillan, 1934. 



